I’m at 10,000 feet for the next few days. The setting is spectacular, with golden dawn sunlight draped over the fiery autumn bushes and still un-capped peaks rising sharply from the back yard. The view inspired me yesterday …. to make a pork roast with white beans and garlic. Because, that’s what one does when one is left speechless by nature’s beauty, no?

Only, that pork roast was way dryer than I expected, and the beans took forever. Everything was hard–chewy meat and crunchy beans.

They say water boils here at 193 so boiled foods take longer. This, I get. I can just boil the beans all day–eventually they’ll get done.

But the pork roast is another conundrum. If I cook the meat to a temperature I’m used to at lower altitudes (say, 140 for a pork roast), too much water has evaporated, and the proteins have become too tough. But if I cook it to 130, it’s still too rare for my taste.

The USDA says to cook meat for 25% more time. The “Flume,” a local publication in Park County, says to cook meat for 25% less time.

Every other resource I’ve found suggests braising meat instead of roasting it, and they all say to serve it with lots of sauce. But this seems like a stop-gap cop-out band-aid sort of solution. I want roasted pork, not braised pork. Surely, there’s a way?

Anyone?

There is a sign tacked to the wall in the house I’m visiting that says “High Altitude May Cause Objects to Appear Crooked.” That may be the best explanation I get…

Charlie Trotter, one of America’s most famous chefs, celebrated the 20th anniversary of his eponymous Chicago restaurant last weekend with a $5000-a-head fundraising dinner prepared by six of the world’s top chefs, including Daniel Bouloud, Thomas Keller, and Ferran Adria of the legendary El Bulli in Spain. See more about it here.

If only I could have been there to taste–and hear–the seafood dish prepared by Heston Blumenthal of England’s famed Fat Duck restaurant. The oyster-clam-seaweed dish came accompanied with an aural seasoning: an iPod loaded with sounds of waves crashing against the shore. Guests plugged the buds in their ears while scarfing down the dish.

A recent spate of FDA-imposed restrictions on seafood from China (including an effective ban on shrimp and catfish) has clued me in to a few things I didn’t know:

1. 80% of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported.

2. China accounts for 22% of America’s imported seafood, including 70% of our tilapia (one of the fastest-growing categories of fish) and 80% of our eel (remember that unagi you had at the sushi bar last week?) The value of Chinese seafood imports has increased almost 400% in the past six years, to just under $2 billion.

3. But China accounts for 60% of barred seafood imports, far more than any other country. Reasons vary, but high levels of toxic chemicals and pesticides are frequently cited by regulators. (The EU and Japan have also imposed various restrictions on Chinese seafood recently, and the EU is considering even harsher measures.)

This part I already knew: The FDA routinely tests only a miniscule percentage of the total food imports that come into the US.

I wonder just how much icky Pearl River Delta runoff has made it into my seafood-loving belly over the past-few years?

Who, exactly, should I be most angry at? The Chinese producers? US government regulators? Myself?

And even though all eyes are currently on China, just how safe is seafood production elsewhere in the world, including here at home?